Father's Day 2011

Back in July 1992 Reba McEntire released a song entitle, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew." It was about a daughter lamenting the fact that though her father "lived just down the hall" she never really got to know him. I've always thought that was perhaps the saddest thing a daughter could say about her father. I certainly hope that song isn't a commentary on my own daughters and their relationship with their father.

What I do know is that the greatest man I have ever known lived just down the hall and that man was my father. I am thinking of him today because this year is a unique year for me as far as Father's Day is concerned. Father's Day falls on June 19 this year and it was 28 years ago to the day (Father's Day 1983) that my dad died. I remember someone saying to me, "How sad that you loose your father on Father's Day." Indeed, I'd be lying if I said that it was not a sad day for me. Indeed it was. It was because on that day, Father's Day June 19, 1983 the greatest man I ever knew was gone.

However, I have never thought I lost him on that day. As Vance Havner once said about his recently deceased wife, "She's not lost, I know right where she is." Truth is, my father is gone but he is not lost. I know where he is. As I told several people back then, "For the first time since his father passed my dad is spending Father's Day in the presence of both his Heavenly Father and his own father. Who am I to begrudge him that."

Beyond that, he is not lost to me. From my youngest years I spent time with my dad. While he worked I would use a "creeper" as a kinda "skateboard" before skateboards were invented. I spent literally hundreds if not thousands of hours with him working in his auto repair shop after school. This continued until I finished high school and college. The most important thing I received from all that time with him (both in the home and the outside world) was the opportunity to watch and listen to him as he related to the challenges and people in his world.

My dad never said too much. He spoke with brevity and clarity. You really had to work hard to misunderstand him. He always spoke positively. I never heard him say anything critical of anyone and that included those people who did not always have his best interest at heart. I cherish a treasure trove of wisdom that I heard come from his lips as he spoke. He never pontificated but had a wonderful knack for sharing words of wisdom in a "back door" sort of way.

He was a man who could keep a confidence. Telling him something in confidence was like casting your fears, burdens and cares into a black hole. They just never resurfaced anywhere to anyone. I now understand why he was the confidant to so many and especially to the pastors of our area. He, a Baptist, was confidant to a couple of local parish priest when we lived in Vinton, Louisiana and later in Pasadena, Texas to at least three Baptist pastors. Being a pastor I know how paranoid we cleric types can be. It rare for pastors and priests to find a person in whom we can confide without fear of having what we share resurface and wound us. I believe this was my father's ministry.

I could go on and on about his virtues and even say a few words about his flaws and he did have his flaws. He would have loved Billy Cunningham's song in which he says, "God is great, beer is good and people are crazy." Dad would have agreed.

You see it isn't so much his perfection as how he lived in light of his imperfections. He never was very successful in business (and that's putting it mildly). He never thought of himself as a good father. In fact, on his death bed he apologized for not being a good father (I told him that was news to me because I saw him as a terrific dad). He spoke of my mom's staying with him through all the years of their marriage as quite an accomplishment on her part and perhaps it was - at least from his point of view. He like all of was a flawed man or as we in the religious world might say, "a man with feet of clay."

But in spite of the real and perceived flaws he was a great dad. He was honest; he was fair; he was loyal; he was trustworthy; he worked hard and loved his work; he was generous; and he was consistent. He was the same in public as he was in private. He honored his father and his mother and he loved his wife and he loved his children. What more could a young man need in a father.

I remember when we had gathered at the National Cemetery in Houston for his graveside service that the pastor, Estol Williams, a friend of both my dad and myself surprised me by asking me to close the graveside service with a prayer. I remember that prayer as though it were done just today, "Father I thank you for a dad who through living his life showed us how to live and in his death taught us how to die." That just about says it all.

So on this Father's Day, June 19, 2011, the 28th anniversary of my Dad's death I say again the my Heavenly Father, "Father I thank you for a dad who through living his life showed us how to live and in his death taught us how to die."